Frump to Fab 2024

Watty1

Lovely post @Makingabobor2

Am optimistic the heating may be fixed today.  Hard to feel fab when it is so cold, I am inside wearing two fleeces and my outdoor boots!   The house is always cold but this is ridiculous.  I cannot light the wood burner which would be my usual solution as the living room is being decorated as part of making my life fab plan. 

2Scratters

Managed to get my hair cut this week as I looked a bit like an explosion in a mattress factory. Even better it was free,  I help her when I'm with my mum(who has dementia) while she gets hers done I sweep and tidy up for her. That's a fair trade for me.
Working my way through "beauty products" slowly. Each empty vessel gives me joy, small things count.

Have a good weekend all

2 Scratters xx

Makingabobor2

I agree @Watty1, it is very cold. Its the north wind making it cold here. I have a long sleeve tea shirt on, fleece & body warmer. I refuse to put the heat on until later. Off to strip the bed now  that'll warm me up

FreetodoasIlike

Hope everyone is still fabbing. I feel very sluggish at the moment and a bit lethargic- definitely lost my mojo. I thought it had come bak a week or so ago, but I’ve definitely lost it again! Anywhoos, I managed to find a gorgeous Calvin Klein dress on vinted. It’s a knee length navy dress with white piping - so glam (and SO cheap). The photo doesn’t really do it justice (it has black piping around the waist)  but it is so under-stated and elegant. It was a US size 12 (UK 16) which normally fits me well in a shift type dress, as I like them to hang loose. However, since I put on weight it’s slightly tight on the bust. If that doesn’t give me the incentive to lose the weight, I don’t know what will. It will go lovely with my navy linen jacket or shrug.  What a find and a great bargain.

@helensbiggestfan  I think your little side hustle/hobby of selling high end vintage clothes is a good one, as you seem to find bargains in charity shops and you seem to love to browse. I sold some lovely clothes on the bay of E when I retired, and regret some of the clothes I sold. One was a vintage Windsmoor swing jacket which I wish I had kept now. To be honest, I buy most of my clothes second hand as I find them better quality, but this dress is SO me and I LOVE it!! Will love it even better when I lose at least 10lbs. Good luck with your side hustle Helen. There is definitely a market out there. It’s fully lined too.

helensbiggestfan

Wow.  What a lovely dress, a real find.   

FreetodoasIlike

I don't find them often, I can assure you! There was a fairly upmarket dress agency near me and she definitely had an eye for style. She wasn’t particularly young, but she knew her stuff, and even had a few part-time staff working for her, so that shows how successful she was. However, she did take 50 per cent of what she sold and you would probably do better selling the items yourself. She bought by appointment only so you couldn‘t  just walk in on an ad hoc basis. She would occasionally take a high quality high street brand but those were few and far between. She could pick and choose really so most of her items were designer. I did take some items (mostly shoes and bags) to her when I retired but she was very picky and to be honest, I would have got more for them after she had taken her commission.

It reminds me of this story... I worked very closely with an older woman who was a big lady, but she was severely overweight. She dressed impeccably, usually teaming her outfit with silk scarves, lovely jewellery etc. She didn't spend a lot on clothes but had a favourite high end boutique which catered for the larger, more mature lady and she used to travel to the boutique about several times a year about 30 miles away. They used to email her when they had a sale and they had beautiful clothes in her size which suited her. She pushed the boat out when she had her golden wedding anniversary in a quite posh hotel (I was invited, along with another colleague). She looked absolutely stunning in her lilac dress and jacket, with accessories and shoes. She was in her 70s but looked younger and very chic.

Just after her anniversary, she went to WW and lost about 7 stone (why she didn't lose the weight for her special anniversary, I don't know!) She had to buy a complete new wardrobe (including underwear) and made an appointment with the dress agency to sell her high end stuff. The lady who owned the agency was thrilled - told my friend that she had many a larger lady who would jump at the chance to buy the clothes. This was good news for my friend, as she planned to use the money to replenish her wardrobe. Now this is what horrified me! The agency owner decided to have a sale (whether it was the wrong time to sell wedding/cruise clothes etc, I don’t know) so my friend got a fraction of what the clothes were worth and would have been better off selling them herself. The agency owner should have told her that she was having a sale (she didn’t) and given my friend the opportunity to take them back, surely? My friend couldn’t really do anything as there was no written contract and basically the owner could do what she liked. Although it was legal, it was morally wrong in every way!! When my friend told me this tale, I was shocked and horrified. Her daughter told her her to leave a bad customer review (she also had a Facebook page) but my friend declined. This was a few years ago, and unfortunately my friend had subsequently put on most of the weight she lost and could probably fit into these lovely clothes (although not the wedding/cruise clothes, as sadly her husband died shortly after and she went into a bit of a decline) but the other clothes would have fitted just perfectly.

This was a dress agency that I used to use to purchase my silk blouses from and is no longer in existence. When I heard my friend’s tale, I stopped going out of principle, even when I was emailed to inform me of something I may like, so she probably lost my custom. Maybe business rates forced her out of business - maybe karma? Who knows? All I know is that she didn’t morally run her business in the right way.

artistlifestyle

@SandyShores yes I think we do have a parallel universe. 😂😂😂 I  got 4 shrubs posts in today and cut the lawn. Building myself up for raking the moss after the 5 week lurgy. Plan A didn’t work re the posts, but plan B did. Only 11 more to go! It means I will have to wash the feet of the indoor ladder, when I’ve finished, it’s  a nuisance but no other way as the posts are 2.4 m and I have to knock them in as far as I can, about half a metre. Trying to get done while borders still soft. Try a few more tomorrow and Monday. Back to work Tuesday. 

SandyShores

Good luck with the posts artistlifestyle, it sounds like quite a job, but will be worth it when finished.  We bought an electric scarifier last year - DH was very pleased with it and the lawn looked like it had a close shave.  Its so nice to get those practical jobs done in the garden.  I need to buy a larger pot for a tree I'm growing in a pot - I don't want to spend a fortune, but they don't seem to have many in Asd@ this year.  

We've got a dress agency in our small town FreetodoasIlike, I took my daughter's prom dress in to sell and you're right its slightly disappointing with the amount.  Plus they said it hadn't sold, so I spent a bit of time looking for it in the shop but couldn't find it, and only then did they realise it had sold 'but hadn't caught up with paperwork'.  I know they are independent and trying to make a living but it leaves a bad taste.  I'm going to stick with V1nted for now.

helensbiggestfan

Good Morning Lovely Ladies.  

Dress agencies.....lol.  They seem to favour buyers more than sellers don't they.  I think if you can it's best to sell privately yourself online.  Yes ebay and the likes take commission of course but I think you still get a better deal and you can at least set your own prices.   Not tried Vinted yet.  I was thinking I might try them for any lower priced items, saving the more expensive things for eBay.  One thing I did learn last year when I started selling on eBay is that it takes just as much time, work and effort (taking photos, writing descriptions, packing etc) to sell a £10 item as it does for something selling at £100, so if you take that into account your "hourly rate" is more attractive if you stick with higher priced items.  

Speaking of higher priced items.  I recently picked up a snakeskin handbag for the grand sum of 99p. It looks brand new, even has a proper dust cover. I'd never heard of the manufacturer so did a bit of research.  .  Apparently it's made by a now defunct Australian luxury brand called Spencer and Rutherford.  They are fetching a lot of money on eBay.  Not sure whether to keep or sell. I too have sold items in the past and then regretted it so I'll hold for  now.  Thing is I can't keep everything.  

I really do have a surfeit of coats but I find them very difficult to part with. I know why.  I grew up quite poor, never had many clothes and for many years I didn't have a decent winter coat, just my gaberdine school mac, which wasn't even proper school uniform regulation. It was a thin summer weight raincoat that my mum had died navy. At least it looked the part but I was often cold.  When I left school at 15 and started work I started buying clothes with a vengeance, especially coats.  You don't need to be a psychologist to work that one out. 😂. When you have grown up with scarcity you tend to develop a mindset that says quantity equals abundance.  Not true of course but it takes a while to unlearn.  

It was lovely here yesterday and some of my family came for lunch. It was so nice to be able to sit out in the garden.  Yesterday I popped into Lidl for some bits and picked up a nice fuchsia bush and some pelagoniums.  Bright red, my favourites.  I'm going to repot the fuchsia because I want to keep that and take it with me when I move.  

Wet and miserable here again today and much colder again.  Never mind it was nice whilst it lasted and hopefully the nice weather is  a foretaste of what's to come.   

Busy week this week so just having a "reset" day, catching up with myself.   

Have a great week y'all.  Keeeeeep fabbing.  💕

Watty.  Hope you got your heating fixed.  I agree being cold is miserable, had enough of that when I was a child.  

FreetodoasIlike

Oh @helensbiggestfan Your childhood story nearly made my cry. I can fully understand why you have collected so many clothes (especially coats) over the years. That must have been hard on you. I was (am) an only child (mum now 102!) and although we weren’t rich, we weren’t poor either. I was always dressed warmly but functionally (think liberty bodice!), hand knitted cardigans and hats etc. I don’t there was much choice growing up then, was there? I too went a bit crazy when I started to buy my own clothes. After I did a two year college course, my mum let me off with a board payment so that I could buy decent office clothes. Instead of buying a couple of nice skirts and blouses, I blew the lot on a full length corduroy coat (very fashionable at the time). My mum was horrified!! There was no buying online of course in those days, and I remember she whisked me off to the local market and bought me a couple of cheap skirts and a couple of cheap blouses (I was the one who was then horrified!!). They were awful and old fashioned (not what your average 18 year old would ever want to wear). But, I wore them until I could afford to replace them (that taught me a valuable lesson!). I’d like to think I didn’t do it again, but of course I did splurge again (typical young person). As you get older, you become more discriminate!

@SandyShores Your story about your daughter’s prom dress is awful (and very unprofessional of them). Yes, you don’t get much if you sell to a dress agency, but as Helen said, they do tend to favour buyers rather than sellers. I sold a nice Paul Costelloe bag, an Osprey and a Kate Spade one too (all bought on eBay and got FAR less for them if I had re-sold them on eBay). It was a big mistake and a hard learned lesson  I wish I had kept them to be honest - particularly the Kate Spade one.

@helensbiggestfan I struck lucky with my £8 Calvin dress on Vinted (that’s why I was so pleased and posted a pic). The prices for buyers are usually low and you can pick up a bargain if you’re lucky. It’s useful for selling lower priced items, but not so much for high end stuff. I would give it a go, but I think you might find it time consuming for little monetary value and I would still use eBay for higher priced items. Unfortunately, I regret selling some items when I retired. Like you say, it takes the same amount of time to sell low end stuff as high end stuff, so I would stick to eBay for more vintage stuff if you can. I’ve bought some vintage and Tiffany jewellery on eBay and got some good deals. I’ve also sold, and liked to sell to private jewellery sellers (knowing that dealers will make a good profit). I sold a nice Pandora Tree of Life bangle engraved (‘love makes a family’) ) to a grandmother for her granddaughter around Christmas time when I broke my wrist and it was a tad tight on me. She didn’t haggle and offered me full price and bought it straightaway, even after after me telling her that I couldn’t  drive and get to a post office at the time. She said she didn’t mind, as long as she received it in time for Christmas. She was so grateful to me that I threw in a Pandora box and unopened cleaning cloth too. 

Another time, I sold a nice solid gold bangle to another lady. I had put a reserve price on it but was open to reasonable offers. I got a few offers from dealers but was glad I sold to the private buyer who didn’t haggle and offered me full price. As I’m curious (nosy) to whom I sell too, I sometimes Google the address. Her profile said she was in her 70s and her address was from a poorer area in south Wales. She sent me a private message to say the bangle was lovely (was 8” which fitted her perfectly) and that she would buy another when she had saved up (it was a Luccetta Italian very slim bangle, and I had three of them and then just decided that I only wanted to wear two). I don’t know if she did buy another one, but I sincerely hope she did. It’s nice to be nice as a seller as there are quite a lot of businesses on eBay that aren’t. I know they have to make a living but some just take the mick! I don’t have much to sell now (usually just buy if I see a bargain that’s up my street) but I loved getting genuine feedback. The lady who bought my Windsmoor coat was over the moon - wish I hadn’t sold it now! (Oh, well, you win some you lose some).

Good luck with your side hustle - I bet you’re one of the “nice” sellers (i.e. not grabby). Your bag sounds nice, keep it if you LOVE it!

Sorry for the long post. Anyone would think I have nothing better to do! Well, I do but it usually involves cleaning, but that can wait.